


Lodgers in Queer Street

by elviaprose



Category: David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, M/M, Prostitution, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 22:38:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16004744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elviaprose/pseuds/elviaprose
Summary: David Copperfield, newly bereft of his fortune, is seeking ways to earn a little money. Uriah Heep, having finally come up in the world a little, is willing to pay handsomely for a handsome man. Neither expects that this will mean their paths will cross in a dingy room in a narrow London street.





	Lodgers in Queer Street

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to x_los for the beta!

“Must be younger’n thirty, educated as a proper gentleman, thin and not par-ticularly tall, dark rather’n fair….” Mrs. Lossenge named the qualities off grumblingly, tapping the second knuckle of each finger in turn and then beginning the litany over again.

It was not that Mrs. Lossenge feared her memory, for she was as sharp as the best of knives, but rather that she relished a complaint where it was warranted, and each repetition served that purpose. “Lor, it’s enough!” she would occasionally interrupt herself to exclaim. 

Mrs. Lossenge was not pleased to be dealing with Mr. Reacher (for that was how he had introduced himself), but she was well aware that she had done well enough by it. Mr. Reacher had kept her good-for-nothing son from hanging for murder, which no other man could have done, and all without stepping foot in the court himself (Not, she thought, that he could he have if he’d wanted to, for whatever he was, he weren’t a barrister, that she’d bet her life on). Bobby had got himself mixed up with a robbery. And when the job had gone bad, and someone had been killed, he’d got the blame. It hadn’t been him that had done it, just him that had been the least canny of the lot and been the one brought in by the police. 

One way or another Mr. Reacher had heard of it, and seen an opportunity for himself. Her son might have learned a thing or two from Mr. Reacher, she thought, Mr. Reacher being quite careful with his affairs, and making it his policy never to do any kind of illegal business with anybody who didn’t owe him greatly and who he didn’t have the drop on, one way or another.

In payment for his hard work (largely in the way of selecting, bribing, and then schooling an array of witnesses in precisely the points that would best stick pins in the law), the red-headed man had required her services as a procuress (rendered without her taking her usual cut). She was not particularly well connected in the world, but she was clever and could satisfy even a request such as Mr. Reacher’s.

When he had made it of her, his red eyes had been like a poker heated in the fire, and he had wrung his hands hard together and squeezed them like he was squeezing the life out of some poor thing. Lor, but he wanted what he wanted, and what a lot of trouble he was willing to go about to get it.

“There is a young man of my acquaintance,” he had said, “of such a description as I ‘ave made to you now. Though there’s more to im besides. I ‘aven’t told you, for instance, a thing about his eyes, for they can’t be matched by anyone in the world--and so there ain’t any use telling you of ‘em. Or his nature, and those little ‘abits which--. Well, I ‘ave longed for him from my youth but never ‘ave ‘ad him, nor never will. He’s far above me as can be, but he is the model--the very model!--of all that’s beautiful and bewitching to me in this world, and so if I’m to pay for my pleasure, I’ll pay for a person as charming as I can come by for fifty pounds. And that’s as near to ‘im as possible.”

Mrs. Lossenge had considered whether she felt any sympathy for him in her breast and decided she didn’t. 

“Well!” she’d said. “I must do it, musn’t I! And not for any profit to me, neither!”

“Why, I shouldn’t like to make demands, for I am an umble person--I really shouldn’t like to say so, but I’m afraid it’s too true,” he’d replied with a writhe.

And so, naming those qualities off on her fingers, she bustled to every pawn-broker she could find and told them that if a young man (she relayed the requisite qualities) came in with a waistcoat or a pocket watch or a ring or whatever-have-you to pawn, to get his address any way he could manage, and if he did she’d pay ‘im well for it.

To her very great surprise, not three weeks later, she got word that a man of just such a description had pawned his waistcoat. Remarked the pawn broker: “and a fine weskit it is. Canary-yellow silk!” 

***

When David entered one of the small, low-roofed rooms of Mrs Lossenge’s establishment (which was itself located in a small, narrow street), his heart was beating sickly beneath his ribs. The lowness and the narrowness pressed in on him and made made him feel keenly just how very pressed he was, and what a desperate thing it was he did. He was ashamed. And yet, in a corner of his heart so secret that he himself had never found it out, he knew that there were all manner of pleasures to be had in being wretched. 

As a boy he had known shames that had made his throat pinched and his stomach lead-lined. And yet, in every one of those humiliations had been a kind of victory. To bite a man he hated as if he were a dog, and then to lie on the floor, beaten almost to death, was terrible. But to have done all, tried all, suffered all, well, that was wonderful. He had admitted to himself that he had felt every inch a villain, but never confessed that it had also made him feel himself a hero.

As for his days working in the factory and supping on nothing but beer, roving the streets, poor and uncared for--well, he found he liked to remember those times, in his private thoughts. He had learned that with time he could come hardly to believe such things had ever happened. That they need not mark him forever. He could return to them as waking-dreams, as memories from when he had been almost--somebody else. There was something almost in the way of a miracle in this to him, one that made him feel that no trouble would ever truly last. 

Once again, he was to try all, to do all. Once again, he would be brought low, and once again be happy. This he knew, without quite knowing it. The workings of his own heart, in this and in other matters, were not quite plain to David. 

And so he could hardly believe he had allowed Mrs. Lossenge to talk him around to this. And, indeed, she had been artful. Having caught him when his Aunt was out, she had made herself quite at home. She had pressed his waistcoat back into his possession--as a gift--and sat sipping tea and gossiping until, after a time, she at last made her offer to him. She had talked of how it’d hardly take anything—an hour at the very most—and he’d have money for all he wished to have it for--fifty pounds, was the offer, for one meeting only--though they might arrange more. She’d told the other party, she confided to David, that he should be unlikely to ‘ave a young gentleman for less than that. Though he wasn’t such a bad lookout, the man in question. If not strictly a good man, not strictly an evil one, she should say. Crafty and sharp, and out for ‘is own ‘appiness, where he could find it in this world, but that weren’t a crime. He was not what she’d call handsome, but he was not a great loutish thing--and that counts for something, don’t it?--and naught but a few years older than David ‘imself. Why, she’d bet good money it would be his first time with anybody. And he kept himself neat. 

It was surely no very great stain or shame, she suggested coaxingly, and she’d be right down stairs and keep him from any ‘arm at all. It did not occur to David to doubt her promise to serve as his protector, and perhaps, indeed, he was right to extend her his trust. As David’s good luck would have it, Mrs. Lossenge’s willingness to come to his aid was not to be put to the test. His trials would be of a rather different sort. 

“Why me?” he had asked.

“Well, for nothing more than that you’re ‘andsome and in need of the money,” she’d replied easily. “Just what ‘e’s looking for.”

That answer had satisfied. And it did not sound so bad. In fact, David found himself interested, even attracted to her description of the other man. If Mrs. Lossenge had painted a more golden portrait of either patron or act, David doubted he would have accepted, but he found she seemed honest, more or less, and it put him at ease. 

David had himself felt attractions to other men not infrequently, but never in such a way that he could imagine going so far out of his way to try sodomy with a stranger--being willing to pay for pleasure! This clever character he’d be meeting interested him. One night, while very dissipated indeed, he had asked if Steerforth might like it, but he had, to David’s great mortification, merely declined with a laugh and a shake of his head. 

David had thought of Dora, and his Aunt, and Mr. Dick, and how dreadfully worried they all were about money, what a deal of good it would do to fifty pounds. He had not thought it would break faith with Dora to commit such an act. Surely to compare that business with what it was to make love to her was nothing but an insult to her, and not worth so much as considering!

David, having arrived a few minutes after his patron, knocked on the door, nearly trembling with anxiety and expectation. 

“Oh, come in!” called a voice, indistinct through the door.

David had to stand in the dim light a moment before he could take in the scene properly--in part, because the evening hour and the smallness of the window left little light to see by, and in part because the sight before him was so unexpected. A tall, lank, red-headed figure with a pale face and long skeleton hands sat hunched on the bed. 

“Uriah?” David said softly. 

“Master Copperfield!” Uriah Heep cried at almost the same instant that David spoke, his lidless eyes narrowing with suspicion even as his face drained to a pastier white than usual with his surprise. He half sprang from the bed where he’d been sitting, and only avoided striking his head on the low ceiling because he jerked himself back downwards again almost in the same motion. “What can it be brings you ‘ere, Master Copperfield?”

David found himself dispossessed of his powers of speech, but his silence, in the end, spoke for him. 

Uriah bent forward, with his hands on his sharp knees, convulsed with silent laughter. “You’re the gentleman,” Uriah said, at last, as though he were bringing forward a charge. “You’re the gentleman she found. Let’s not pretend it’s other than it is, for it don’t become us,” he shook his head. 

No one could have doubted that this situation was as unexpected to Uriah as it was to David. Perhaps, if anything, David was the less surprised, for stunned as he was to find Uriah in this cramped little room, David realized he was not, after all, greatly surprised to learn that Uriah would seek out such an assignation. Rather than marvelling over finding Uriah as he had, he found himself instead reflecting, almost wryly, that though she had not meant to mislead him, he should certainly never have sketched Uriah so generously as Mrs. Lossenge had. “Not strictly evil” indeed! 

“You’ll be departing immediately, then, Master Copperfield,” Uriah said. “What a shame it is, certainly, but the terms of the agreement ‘ave changed considerably, now both parties are known to one another. It would do you a great injury to so much as insinuate that I should still--”

“Would it do me an injury?” David said angrily, feeling almost dared to it. “Perhaps I’ll still do it.” He regarded Uriah. That Uriah was his enemy was absolutely certain. That David disliked him immensely was also certain. But it seemed it would almost be less of an embarrassment to stay than to depart. If Uriah would still carry on with him and David would not, he would be all but confessing his enmity for Uriah, which he had always sensed would put him on the back foot with the other man. Uriah knew very well how to twist such a situation around to his own advantage, to make himself seem in the right, and David in the wrong. And there was something else, too, giving him caution, besides Uriah’s ability to use David’s anger against him. It was the quality of his own feelings: the fact that his battles with Uriah seemed to draw him onto strange paths. Though he had good cause to dislike Uriah, his sentiments went beyond that good cause. It had always seemed impossible to express that he did not like Uriah without revealing his very soul. Why Uriah should provoke such deep feelings, he did not know, but he sensed that a black river ran through his heart, and it must be kept secret. If he stayed, he assured himself, he admitted to nothing but the will to face a bad situation down to the end, and that was a quality he was proud of in himself.

Besides, if he left now, the abortive nature of the encounter would add to the shame, he was certain. If they let the whole song play out to its last note, it would at least have the quality of a thing concluded. 

Uriah’s hands came up to clutch at his collar and loosen his neckerchief. He was perspiring visibly, and his earlier paleness had turned to a deep flush. “Perhaps you will indeed,” he said slowly. “What a pity it should be, after all, to come so far in this and gain nothing at all by it.” He chafed hard at his chin. “And don’t Shakespeare say it’s easier to wade deeper in blood than to come back?” 

“How very true,” David said stiffly. He tamped down a small spark--the quotation was quite unexpected, and its very unexpectedness held a queer pleasure for him. Why David should like Uriah to exceed the lines he had ruled for him, he did not know. But he did.

He wondered if Uriah’s own courage might not fail him, for it would take a deal of nerve on his part, too, to go through with it. Or if he would think better of paying David for his pleasure, when he would surely enjoy it better with nearly any other man on the earth.

“Then--If you wouldn’t find it too unbecoming, perhaps you might get onto your knees and swallow my cock,” Uriah said, looking him hard in the eye. Evidently, fail him it had not. “I umbly apologize for seeming so forward in the manner and nature of the request, but I’m sure, umble as I am, I don’t know how to ask it more gentlemanly.”

“I think that’s a lot of nonsense,” David said, and to his surprise, Uriah offered him what seemed almost to be a smile.

“Oh it may be,” Uriah said. “Perhaps it is. Even so, I’m sure I don’t know what else to say! ” He gestured, inviting David forward, and, fortifying himself with all the will he had, David came and knelt before where Uriah was seated. The bed was high enough that they could position themselves comfortably, though it was soft and lumpish, and the blankets gray and aged.

Uriah’s hands came graspingly up and stroked David’s face, once, very briefly. The gesture struck David’s heart sharply and sweetly, though he did not know why Uriah did it, or what he meant by it. 

They both hesitated a moment, and then, with an unsteady hand, David undid Uriah’s trousers. It sent a hard rush through David’s own body to see that Uriah was already quite aroused. He had wondered if all prospect of pleasure had ended for Uriah when David had entered the room, if Uriah had decided he must simply brazen it out, but now it certainly did not seem so. David said nothing upon making this discovery, but rather simply bent and put the large, hot organ just a little way into his mouth. It tasted bitter and salty and strange. Clumsily, he moved his tongue about a little.

“In point of fact, if I ad known it was you I’d be seeing, Master Copperfield, I should ‘ave been more generous with my offer,” Uriah said, gasping. “A hundred pounds at least. You quite surpass all my ‘opes for this evening.”

David stopped his efforts. Surely this was mockery. “It is a very considerable sum you’ve offered already. I am surprised it is within your means at all,” he said cooly, though he was nearly trembling at the outrage of this remark, and at the situation in general. It struck him, however, that whatever Uriah said to mock him--and he had said much--Uriah took him in deadly earnest. Uriah had always treated him as though he was the most worthy foe in the world. He always spoke--and now was surely no exception--as though David merited every ounce of his crafty malice he’d stored up, that every drop of poison he possessed must be drained for David’s sake. No one else, he realized with a shock--not one other person he knew or had known, had offered him this sort of respect. 

“Oh, I am very umble still, but I have saved up a little money--enough to indulge myself on this single point this once, if I keep pretty thrifty otherwise. Now Master Copperfield, go on. And keep going on a good while,” Uriah said.

It struck David that it really was a great deal of money for Uriah, and that Uriah had wanted this, very probably, for years of his life. What a great disappointment it would surely be to him, if he did not enjoy it now! And having thought this, and having felt a little spasm in his heart, David found that although he had not for many years thought to make himself agreeable to Uriah, he was willing to try his best for him now. It was not easy, and David’s face became damp and his mouth became a little raw from his efforts to keep his teeth out of the matter. He became so concentrated on the act that for a time he hardly thought about whether he was enjoying it at all himself. He was, though--not inconsiderably.

At first, Uriah was silent, but before long he began to make soft sounds in the back of his throat. “Stroke a hand over my hip a little as you go, won’t you?” Uriah muttered, sounding sullen and distracted. “As though you like me, and want me to be ‘appy.”

David did, and realized he was feeling a tightness in his breast, and something almost like tenderness. After only a little time of sucking at Uriah’s cock and rubbing a thumb over and over his hip, Uriah pulled him awkwardly upwards, dragging him up onto the bed and tugging him to lie beside him, seeming more than half blind and almost insensible to what it was he did. 

“That’s it. Be good to me,” Uriah said. “Touch me anywhere, so long as it’s nice. For a hundred pounds you will, won’t you?” 

David had to swallow twice, at this. He marvelled at the state Uriah was in. Uriah’s body had grown so hot and flushed that it could not cool, and become clammy in any extremity--his hands burned on David where they clutched at him. David had not thought of Uriah as needing kindness, but he was clearly badly starved for it. Nearly every touch David gave him, Uriah encouraged with a sound and a sigh, and Uriah’s body seemed to grow ever more vulnerable to the slightest stroke of his hand. David, hardly thinking what he did, but acting on the vague thought that Uriah should like to be cooled off, wet his own fingers, blew on them, and then ran them lightly over Uriah’s neck and cheeks. Uriah gasped as though he’d been plunged chest deep into a winter-cold river, rather than touched with hands that were only barely less warm than they had been. 

“Undress me a little,” Uriah begged, writhing up awkwardly, as if that would help David to do it. He was glad to--far from this being something to be got over, he was enjoying it like he had enjoyed nothing else. If I could always make Uriah happy, David found himself thinking, I think I might choose to do that over nearly anything. David’s dislike had for many months towered over any of the facts of their association. Uriah had seemed a titanic villain--now, his faults seemed almost laughably small. David felt drunk--he couldn’t think. But it was so good to be making it right--to be making it all right. It shocked him, too, how Uriah’s twisted, jutting, marvellous, absorbing body, in every detail, made him want to touch it. David undid the buttons of Uriah’s shirt, one by one. Uriah let out a little cry as each button slipped through its hole, as if he could feel them go. David’s eyes had grown sufficiently accustomed to that close, shadowy room to see that Uriah’s chest, gray-colored in the dimness, was somewhat unexpectedly dotted everywhere with freckles. They looked dark and strange. David stroked his fingers gently over them while Uriah shuddered harder and harder. David took him in his arms, not quite sure how to hold him, with him being so sharp in every limb, but doing his best. Once his arms were around Uriah, however, he found he was surprisingly comfortable to hold, fitting close to David in a way that somehow made his hard angles seem to melt away. 

After a time Uriah shifted so that he lay atop David, though still in his arms, his long body twined over David’s. His bony arms came up and he grasped both of David’s shoulders and he pressed a kiss to David’s lips. Then he stopped, with a jerk that David thought might have been a start. He pushed himself hard away from David. 

“All right now, that’s enough,” Uriah said. He spoke harshly. “I’ll fuck you now. I’m allowed it, ain’t I? You did agree to as much, didn’t you? As they say in the law, consensus facit legem.” 

“Uriah--”

“May I or mayn’t I?” Uriah said sharply.

“Uriah, you may--”

“Then I will,” he said. “Not another word, if you please. Though,” and here his voice slid back to its more accustomed softness, “you will speak if I’m giving you any pain, won’t you? I don’t mean to do that.” 

It seemed to take a long time to undress. David's body felt heavy and vulnerable--unknown to him, somehow, even in how it might move. No one had seen him like this. He was nervous, but when Uriah turned his eyes away as much, it seemed, as he could from David’s nakedness, David was not sure if he was glad, or if he had hoped Uriah would look a little. 

There was oil on the bedside table. He watched Uriah pour it into his hand, but then Uriah urged him into a position in which David could not easily keep himself turned towards him, and so he looked no longer. David thought he might have been less nervous, if he could watch Uriah, instead of waiting, but he did not ask if they might rearrange themselves. The wait was long enough that he almost spoke to ask if something was the matter. He wondered at the hesitation. But then, with the oil’s help, Uriah pushed his fingers deep into David. Uriah was as careful as could be, but he did not seem to be making any effort to give David any pleasure as he worked. Still, even without Uriah trying to please him with it, the simple feeling and fact of having those long, cold, damp fingers in such a secret place inside him aroused David to the point where he had to bite his lip hard to keep quiet.

Uriah continued another minute in softening David up with his fingers, and then he muttered: “I almost can’t bear to do it.” This seemed to David quite a surprising thing to say, since Uriah had seemed to like all they did very well up to that point, but he hardly had a moment to wonder at it, for Uriah could bear it after all, and he pressed in just after he had spoken. In that press all thought spiked white and sharp from David’s mind.

“Ah--it does hurt!” David cried, for a moment a little frightened at just how strange and painful it was. 

“How selfish I am,” Uriah said, very sourly, and stopped dead. “It’s the least I can do not to hurt you, Master Copperfield. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

He moved slowly and carefully, after that.

“Oh, Copperfield,” he murmured. “If only I could--” and here, what had seemed like it would be a whole sentence, broke apart. “--if only you could--It won’t take much. It won’t be long. Just--Master Copperfield,” he whispered. “Oh, my heart. Copperfield--my--” he cried.

And then he finished, drawing air in in great loud gasps and jerking hard. 

Uriah pulled out slowly, letting out one last little sound, and David felt his organ, slick and softening, slide over his own skin. It was, he thought, quite horrible, and yet he didn’t mind it in the least. 

As they lay side by side, David began to think. It had all been so far from awful that he felt almost giddy--he had come through his trial, and by it had discovered something surprisingly wonderful in the world. If this could be good, and pleasant--if he could in this way be kind to Uriah, and take pleasure himself, surely much could be made right that had been ill. He felt perhaps that he and Uriah might start afresh, and understand each other better, and make new terms between them, whether they ever tried such an act again or no. 

“I ‘ave never been nearer to ‘anging myself,” Uriah said just then. It was so unexpected, in itself and in light of David’s own cheerfulness, that David laughed. Uriah, however, was fully in earnest. “I mean it, Mister Copperfield. I wonder if you are ashamed of what it is we’ve done this evening?” He propped himself up on one spidery arm to look at David.

“I thought I might be, but I don’t find I am.” David said, honestly. 

“I des-say it ain’t so bad for you. What have you done, in the end?” Uriah said. His voice was mild--so mild that David shuddered, for he knew that if anyone had ever taken the advice to seem the innocent flower but be the serpent under it, it was Uriah. “But you know, it is very bad for me.”

“I’m sure I don’t see why it should be much worse for you,” David frowned. 

“I suppose I didn’t, either, when we agreed to it. I never thought about what it would be to do it. I never thought I could ‘ave you even so far as this, and so I never thought how I’d despise myself for it. You’ve seen how I love you, which is ‘ard enough to bear, for you don’t share the feeling. But that I could face down, if I ‘ad showed myself better. What a low ‘art is in my breast, willing to ‘ave your body without your own ‘art, if it’s all I can get! I ought to have turned you away. It don’t do me any credit to love you, if it only makes me ever more spiteful and ever more greedy--and it does. What won’t I do, where I love? I am putting my own life and yours into a misery every way I know how. I know I am, and yet I don’t stop it. I can’t stop it, Master Copperfield, for my life.”

“Love me!” David exclaimed, quite shocked to hear it. He had not considered the possibility for a moment. He had allowed only that Uriah craved a little kindness and pleasure from the world, and was (surprisingly) willing to have it from him, if he offered it. 

“Ain’t that plain to you?’ Uriah asked, looking to David searchingly. David thought he looked pale, and worried, and like a man he could forgive. He did not disagree that it was unbecoming to allow one’s love to fill one up with malice and spite, but it was very much a different thing than if Uriah had only envied and despised him. As Uriah had begged to be touched, David had for the first time begun to believe he might have some little power over Uriah’s happiness, and it had pleased him greatly--but what if he had a great deal more than a little power? Was that better, or worse? Better, he thought, and the answer pooled hot and sweet like honey in his breast. Thought of Uriah doting on him cut all through him. He loved the thought of Uriah smiling over something he’d said or done--his hard face would crease up nicely, handsomely. Clever, shrewd Uriah--his to love. Their encounter had left David feeling quite roused, and though his body had subsided, now the thought hardened and plumped up his cock all over again. But could it ever be? 

“Tell me, Uriah,” David said, “If I returned your love, would you hate any kindness I tried to give you, or would it ease your spitefulness? Do you think you could be happy?” 

Uriah shut his eyes tightly. “Yes,” he whispered painfully. “Happy--and I think I might be nearly good. If I were as umble as I ought to be--as I was told I must be, day at night, when I was at school, I should accept my umble lot and be grateful for it. But I never will be, Copperfield. I never will be. I must have this one great desire of my ‘art, or I’ll never come right.”

David weighed this up. He did not consider this to be the great fault Uriah seemed to find it. It seemed to him that there were a deal more stumbling blocks in the way of being virtuous if one’s lot in life were a hard one than if it were not. If most men, in their unhappiness, were not quite so bad about it as Uriah, then most men also could not be satisfied so simply and sweetly. David found he did believe Uriah that this one thing could make him happy--that Uriah knew his own heart in this matter.

“I could never bear to try to win you,” Uriah said simply, “for I knew I’d see I couldn’t do it. If I’d had a hope, I’d have pursued it. If I had thought you could like my wretched old hands on you tonight, I would have spared no effort to bring you every pleasure in the world. I wonder now if--” he swallowed hard, and jerked violently. “If you could--be---insinuating---”

The effort to clarify this point seemed almost more than what Uriah was equal to. David watched him with a kind of entrancement. Flushed with his own desire, he allowed Uriah labor to finish his question, savoring the other man’s struggle with guilty enjoyment, marvelling at how he could affect him. 

“That you really---could requite my feelings for you,” Uriah managed at last.

“Yes,” David said, and it came from him almost as a groan. “I truly believe I could.” He had never felt as he did now towards anyone--he was wild with passion for Uriah, and deeply glad for the chance to matter to another person so much, to be so necessary, and so loved. David felt he must now change his course, or he would always regret it, would always feel he had missed the great chance of his life. Dora had left him giddy, but that feeling, he realized, had never seemed to him, in his heart of hearts, as though could change him or her for the better. Now he might make beauty of ugliness, love of hate, virtue of vice. He felt wild and hot. He wanted to kiss Uriah endlessly, to plunge into the sea, or off a cliff, or do anything dangerous.

Uriah had begun to perspire hard again and dabbed at his brow with an unsteady hand.

“Copperfield,” he breathed. “You can’t mean it. You can’t! Oh, but perhaps you can--can you? My ‘art will be dashed to pieces if it don’t prove to be true. Better to level with you now, better to tell you all--better not to wait.” He drew in a loud breath. “Master Copperfield, before you can be certain of your promise, I must repose one last a confidence. Then you will know all the worst of me. I robbed your Aunt of all her fortune." 

"What?" David cried, quite surprised. 

Uriah looked alarmed. "I ‘aven’t spent it, though," he said quickly. "Not a penny. It's only the crime and the effects of it you must forgive, and not a permanent loss. And the ‘undred pounds I’m to pay you, I earned. I haven’t yet spent any money I didn’t earn in all my life--I don’t like to, somehow, though I certainly liked to steal it. I wanted to have something that was meant to be yours.”

David, in his fey mood, found he almost liked that Uriah had done this. It was grand, and dramatic, and could yet be undone. “So it is still a hundred! I was sure you’d take it back down to fifty. I think you’re reforming yourself already. You can make all of it right,” David promised recklessly. “You can give the money back, and forget all about Agnes, and still come right. Uriah, let us be happy together. Kiss me--I’m so glad you like me, and so full of need for you, I--”

Uriah wasted no more time. His mouth sucked hot, desperate red marks everywhere into David’s skin, his hands stroked him tenderly.

“I am yours forever,” Uriah vowed.

***

Fifteen years later, an aged Mrs. Lossenge narrowed her eyes at two half-familiar figures walking arm in arm down the other side of the street. One, being so tall, and so lank, and so violently red-headed, was striking enough that her memory was jarred. Still, she doubted she would have managed to recall where she had seen him before, had he been alone. His companion was less startling in his appearance (save for the brightness of his waistcoat, which was becoming increasingly out of fashion), but she had counted out his features on her fingers at least a dozen times. Younger’n thirty, educated as a proper gentleman, thin and not par-ticularly tall, and dark rather’n fair,” she repeated, one final time. “Well, I never!”


End file.
